Eating Vegan: Can a Vegan Diet Feed the World?

Is a plant-based, vegan diet the answer to our world’s growing food needs?

One of the tenets of the “green revolution” is that GMOs and chemical pesticides are necessary to feed our growing world population. These biotech companies have a lot of money to throw around to promote that idea, but lately there has been some noise about alternative ways that we can feed the world.

The UN released a report showing that the Western diet, heavy on animal products and by-products, is unsustainable and calling for people to move away from animal foods in order to reduce fuel consumption and the amount of land and water necessary to feed us.

Why Vegan?

Producing animal products is highly inefficient. Instead of growing corn, soybeans, and grain for people to eat, we have to pass all of that food through animals in order to sustain our taste for meat, dairy, and eggs. Meat and other animal products come with a hefty environmental impact. 70 percent of freshwater consumption and 38 percent of total land use are for agricultural production. Additionally, 14 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases come from agricultural production. How many more people could we feed if we reclaimed that water and land to grow food that people could eat directly?

About the Author

Becky Striepe My name is Becky Striepe (rhymes with “sleepy”), and I am a crafts and food writer from Atlanta, Georgia with a passion for making our planet a healthier, happier, and more compassionate place to live. My mission is to make vegan food and crafts accessible to everyone!. If you like my work, you can also find me on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Great article. Thanks for sharing all of this wonderful info. I’ve been vegan since 1994, and every year I discover more and more reasons to be happy with my decision. p.s. Cute pic of the avocado – awwwww!!!

There was a segment on one of the national radio stations in the UK this evening about the poor British pig farmers and how they are losing money because the cost of the wheat that they feed their pigs has ren so high. No-one seemed to question whether this was because it is completely unsustainable to feed livestock on crops which could be used to feed humans – most annoying!

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